


Something Real

by saiditallbefore



Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Artists, Bess has emotions besides gentle placid contentment, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Spiritualists, cameo from Amy, vaudeville
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 14:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21375373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/pseuds/saiditallbefore
Summary: “These are pretty.”  He said the word distastefully.  “But they make me feel nothing.”“I like for things to be pretty,” Bess said faintly.In search of something "real", Bess turns to Nan.
Relationships: Nan Harding/Bess Laurence
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019





	Something Real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onedogtown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onedogtown/gifts).

Bess was certain that she’d never been more miserable in her life.

She’d spent her entire life surrounded by art. She’d learned to draw almost before she’d learned to talk, and she’d learned painting and sculpting after. She’d been to Europe, to see the works of the great masters. She’d studied with her mother and with tutors. She had a great deal to learn, still, but she’d spent her whole life in pursuit of art.

She was an _artist_. And yet, Mr. Graville disagreed.

He was a curator for a museum in New York, come to Parnassus to visit her father. He’d taken a look at her work as a favor. 

Bess had stood to the side, trying to look more serene than she felt, as he had examined her pieces. He’d lingered over each one, and she’d hoped he’d say something— that he’d see some spark of talent. 

In her secretest heart, she hoped that he would see some great genius in her work— that he’d want one of her pieces for his collection.

When he was finished, having examined each and every piece, Mr. Graville turned to Bess.

“You’re not untalented,” he’d said. “But your work is… It’s flat. Sterile.”

Bess swallowed heavily. “What do you mean?”

“These are _pretty_.” He said the word distastefully. “But they make me feel nothing.”

“I like for things to be pretty,” Bess said faintly.

Mr. Graville snorted. “Pretty isn’t enough. There needs to be something _real_. Something _honest_.” He took in Bess’s stricken expression. “Get out of this house and live a little. Find something to care about besides _prettiness_ and use it for your art.”

Her father had been unhappy with Mr. Graville. Her mother, less so, though she objected to the way Mr. Graville had delivered the message.

Bess was devastated. But at least someone had been honest with her.

* * *

Mr. Graville had told Bess that she needed to find something real and use it in her art. He clearly hadn’t been literal when he said that; Bess’s portrait studies and landscapes were real, even if her cherubs weren’t. 

But there was one person who Bess had always been able to trust to be honest, even when it was inconvenient.

“Nan?” Bess knocked a bit harder. Maybe she was sleeping. 

“You called?” The voice came from behind her, not inside.

Bess spun around and embraced her. They exchanged greetings, then Nan invited Bess inside of her small house.

“What brings you here so early?” Nan finally asked. There were dark circles under her eyes. Bess wondered guiltily whether she’d been up all night with a patient. Maybe she’d been hoping to get some sleep.

Bess recounted her conversation with Mr. Graville. “And I thought— Well, I don’t know what I thought.”

“Why should you even listen to him?” Nan asked. Bess was oddly touched by the outrage in her old friend’s voice. 

“Because I don’t want to be good _enough_,” Bess said. “I want to actually be good. I want my art to make people feel things. And when Mr Graville talked about things that were real and honest, I— well, I thought about you.”

Nan looked flattered. “So you want something to shake you up, then?”

Bess nodded.

“I think I might have a few ideas.”

* * *

Bess met with Nan on a Saturday afternoon. Nan hadn’t told her where they were going; knowing Nan, Bess was a bit worried about whatever she might have in mind.

The grin on Nan’s face when she picked Bess up wasn’t reassuring, either.

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what we’re doing?” Bess asked.

“We’re going to a vaudeville show!” Nan replied brightly.

Bess was intrigued. She’d been to the theater any number of times before, but her parents had never taken her to a vaudeville show. 

The theater was crowded with all sorts, but Nan expertly wove her way through the crowd, pulling Bess along after her. Bess herself was distracted; she’d always loved people-watching, and there were so many different people here to watch.

Finally, they reached their seats. Bess wanted to ask what the show would be, but she had a feeling that Nan wouldn’t tell her.

At last, the lights dimmed and an announcer came on stage. In a loud booming voice, he said, “Presenting...the Boxing Gordon Sisters!” 

“The _what_?” Bess hissed to Nan.

Two women, dressed in short, sporty dresses, walked onstage. Both had their light hair piled on top of their heads, and both wore boxing gloves. But there would be no difficulty telling them apart. One of the sisters— Bessie Gordon, according to the announcer— was shorter and stockier, and wore a dark blue dress. Minnie Gordon, the other sister, was tall and thin, and wore pale green.

“Are they really going to fight?” Bess asked.

“Don’t worry,” Nan said. “It’s just an exhibition.“

Exhibition or not, Bess was certain that the jabs the sisters landed on each other had to hurt. But at the same time, it was thrilling to watch. 

One of them— Millie— landed a particularly brutal hit. 

“Oh!” Bess exclaimed, grabbing at Nan’s hand. Surprisingly, Nan didn’t push her away.

* * *

This sort of thing became a regular occurrence. Not just vaudeville shows; Nan made a habit of dragging Bess out to medical lectures, to suffragette rallies, and to get-togethers with Nan’s other friends.

Sometimes, she just went over to the little house where Nan lived, all on her own.

“Don’t you get lonely?” Bess asked her once.

Nan shrugged. “It’s not so bad. I’m close to my patients this way.”

“I don’t think I could stand it.” Bess shivered a bit at the thought. 

“It’s not so different from living with my father,” Nan said. “Only this way, no one is bothered by all my comings and goings.”

It still sounded terribly lonely to Bess. But then, she supposed that her relationship with her parents was rather different than Nan’s relationship with her father. 

There was nothing that Bess could think of to say that wouldn’t make Nan upset, so she just patted Nan’s hand and changed the subject. “Did you hear the news from cousin Emil? He sent Aunt Jo and Uncle Fritz a letter last week.”

* * *

Bess had never been a recluse, and she’d always prided herself on being rather well-cultured. But it seemed clear to her now that she really _was_ quite sheltered, even after her education at Plumfield. Perhaps her art really had reflected that.

But now, Nan was changing things.

“Where are we going today?” Bess asked.

“There’s a spiritualist giving a talk in the city,” Nan said.

Bess looked at her in surprise. “Do you really believe in that?” It seemed entirely unlike Nan.

Nan snorted. “Of course not. It’s patently ridiculous. But I’ve read all about them, and I’m curious. Aren’t you?”

Bess laughed. 

The spiritualist was a young woman, somewhere between Bess and Nan’s ages. Her stories were fantastical— she spoke of channeling spirits from the afterlife and of passing on their messages, of afterlives and reincarnation and other ideas that Bess had never given a passing thought to.

It was fascinating. It gave Bess chills, like she used to get when listening to ghost stories around the fire during her school years at Plumfield. Back then, she used to tell the boys to stop, and then Aunt Jo would come and fuss at them, and then they’d all feel guilty for scaring her. But now, she just clutches a little bit tighter to Nan.

* * *

Bess crumpled up another sketch and threw it away. She’d been trying to make something for weeks, ever since Mr. Graville had looked at her pieces. She’d hoped that all the outings with Nan would have inspired something. 

But nothing she tried was working. Her boxers looked stiff, her crowds all looked the same, and her landscapes looked dull.

She sighed, and tried again. As much as many people wanted to think otherwise, art required discipline and hard work. She supposed that this was the hard part.

Bess didn’t think too much about what she was drawing until it started to take shape under her pencil. And even then— well, why shouldn’t she draw Nan? Nan was one of her closest friends, now more than ever.

It was hard to capture Nan with pencil and paper: the spark in her eyes and her quicksilver smile were elusive. But Bess persisted.

She was still trying to get the curve of Nan’s jaw right when her mother walked in.

“Isn’t it getting a little late, darling?”

Bess looked up, startled. When did it get so dark? “I just wanted to finish this,” she said.

“You’ll hurt your eyes, working in this light,” Mother said. She stepped a bit closer to the table, and Bess obligingly turned the sketch so she could see it better.

Mother looked from the sketch to Bess, and back again. “Is that Nan?”

Bess nodded.

Mother smiled, and tenderly ran a hand through Bess’s hair. “It’s a beautiful likeness.” 

Bess frowned. “I don’t think I’ve got her chin right.”

“Get some sleep, dear, and you can look at it with fresh eyes in the morning.”

It was the sort of exchange Bess had had dozens of times with both of her parents. She supposed she could have resented them for being so overprotective of her, but she didn’t mind. She kissed her mother on the cheek and went to bed, thinking all the while about how to perfect her sketch.

* * *

Bess stared at her finished sketch of Nan. It had taken several days of work, and she was still entirely too aware of its flaws, but it was complete.

While she had been hard at work on it, Bess had looked at it in bits and pieces, not as a whole. But now— now that she could take it all in— Bess saw what she hadn’t before.

She had made Nan look striking, mysterious. Not beautiful— Nan was no great beauty. But this was, perhaps, better than beauty, in the way that it drew the viewer in. There was something in the curve of her mouth, in the shape of her neck, in the cascade of her hair, that called for the viewer to pay attention.

The realization hit Bess like a lightning strike. 

“I’m in love with Nan,” she murmured to herself. Nan, and her independent spirit, and her determination to show Bess a wider world than the one she’d grown up with, and her tender heart hidden deep.

* * *

“You seem distracted. Are you alright?” Nan placed a hand on Bess’s.

“It’s nothing,” Bess said. She smiled, and hoped it looked natural. But really, how was she supposed to think straight around Nan, after what she’d recently realized?

“Are you sure?” Nan asked, frowning. She stood, and pressed the back of her hand against Bess’s forehead.

“I’m not sick,” Bess protested.

“You’ve got a delicate constitution,” Nan said. “It doesn’t hurt to be sure.”

Bess pushed Nan’s hand away and stood up. “I’m not sick. I’m just—”

“Just what?” Nan looked deeply concerned, as if she thought Bess might admit to some fatal disease in the next sentence.

Bess threw caution to the wind and kissed Nan.

“That,” she said. “Just… that.”

Nan looked at her, wide-eyed. Then, she pulled Bess to her, embracing her, and the two of them traded kisses and smiles and confidences well into the evening.

* * *

Mr. Graville’s next visit to Parnassus was almost an entire year after his last.

He was quiet, still, when he looked over Bess’s work. He paused for the longest time in front of a painting— a study of a young, serious-looking woman hard at work at her studies. In many ways, it wasn’t so different from the pieces Bess had done before.

But it had something real in it— some_one _real.

Mr. Graville turned to Bess. There was something almost like a smile on his face. “This one has promise.”


End file.
